Musical Monday: Jackie Wilson said what?

It's a Monday, there's something like eight inches of snow on the ground (despite the forecast that told us we'd have half that, at most), and I'm kind of tired and achy, hoping it's not something coming on. So, we'll have some rather chipper music today! About two weeks back, I completely got Van Morrison's Jackie Wilson Said stuck in my head.



But it did get me wondering:  What did Jackie Wilson say? According to Van Morrison, it was 'Reet Petite', whatever that meant. But since Morrison has a rather...unique...vocal style (as my wife says, "He swallows his words," which is a pretty apt description), what you hear may not come anywhwere close to reality. After all, for years I thought the chorus line in Jackie Wilson Said went either "What did Billy want" or "Bop en diddy wah" when it's really "I'm in heaven when". So, I did a little searching.

Turns out, Jackie Wilson really did say "Reet Petite"! Reet Petite (The Sweetest Girl in Town) was Wilson's first solo hit way back in 1957, and got a second burst on the charts almost thirty years later, when the following, somewhat bizarre) video was made (three years after Wilson's death).



Well, that's it for me. Just about time to go and shovel. How's things by you all?

No Post Monday!

Take the week off. Enjoy it!

Monday Musing: No Real Theme Edition (and no political commentary!)

Random bits and pieces from over the last week, because I've been too lazy/busy to get an actual post!

-Penguins won the Stanley Cup last night. This was a good game, an entertaining series, and a lot more fun to watch in some ways without a dog in the fight. Congratulations to Pittsburgh on the win, and Nashville on a great series.

-In an era where coaching and systems have become so dominant, it's comforting to see talent as the deciding factor. Though the deciding goal wasn't some sort of rink-length, dipsy-doodling rush finished off with a diving backhander tucked up under the crossbar, Pittsburgh's overall talent superiority was evident in them having most of the really good scoring chances. It would be nice to see coaches fill out the bottom six forward lines with more talent over "grit," because the talent is out there.

-A couple of weeks back, I joined a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC; I think that's what the letters stand for) through the University of Iowa. The theme of the course is "Writing Identities and Social Issues in Fiction and Nonfiction" (I always want to hyphenate 'nonfiction'). It's been pretty interesting, good food for thought, good exposure to other writers. The 'discussions' we're supposed to be participating in, however, seem to be mostly individual responses to a question posed by an instructor instead of actual discussion. And there's a lot of quid pro quo critique going on. Of course, there are a lot of people in this course, with a lot of assignments being posted: how many can you read (and thoughtfully comment on) in a week?

-I used a piece of my WiP and a piece of my RiP for a couple of assignments and got some useful feedback. It also got me looking at my RiP, which means I'm actually one step closer to finally doing something with it.

-Downside of opening the windows to let cool night air in? Skunks. Last night, the smell just sort of wafted in, growing stronger and stronger, though it never quite reached eye-watering levels. Pepé le Pew was on the prowl!

-Hit the middle eighties yesterday. I think maybe we're clear of the threat of frost and snow--finally!

-Am I the only person who gets annoyed by this "Focused Inbox" thing that Microsoft is trying to shove down my throat with Outlook? Just show me everything and let me decide what's important, thank you very much.

That's about it for me, what's new with you?

 

Musical Monday: The Clash

Annnnd here we are again. I have the day off, I've spent the last two plus hours working on this damn resolution post, and I've decided it's time to pull the plug on it yet again, because I have other things I want to work on today--like the WiP. I suspect part of my problem is that some of the post will look a bit like trashing another writer, which I am loathe to do, because a) who am I? and b) I just don't like to trash anything. Instead, we get another fluff post about the weekend and a little bit of music.

Writing: The WiP is progressing. Currently around 130 pages and 35K words, I like where it's going. I did slow down a bit at the end of last week, as I was not feeling well, but did have a good day yesterday.

Weekend: Took the long drive to bring The Catbird back to college on Saturday, she starts classes today (no MLK day for her!). We enjoyed having her home, and the house is very quiet, despite the fact she's a quiet kid. Spring break is only eight weeks away!

Parental boasting time: The Catbird nailed her second straight semester of straight A's. I think first semester freshman year she got one B+ or A-, so she's rocking a pretty damn good GPA. The Magpie finished her own four years with something like a 3.98 GPA. Smart kids!

Weather: We're riding a roller coaster for January. First week was kind of warm; then it got kind of cold; now it's kind of warm again. We had really heavy rain and 50 degrees last Thursday, so pretty much all the snow is gone.

Music: I'm gonna go all hipster here and say I liked The Clash before it was cool (i.e., before "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go" were big hits). This song, from their excellent London Calling album, actually helped me answer a Trivial Pursuit question many years ago!


That's it for me for now. What's going on with all of you?

Musical Monday: Concert!

Having a dog comes with many benefits. The downside? They get old.

Our pup is twelve this year, and as she gets older, she gets more neurotic and definitely more entitled. This morning she woke me up at ten past five so I could take her out. But what I think she most wanted was water. We came back in from the walk and she drank one and a half bowls.

I can't blame her. It was mid- to upper-80s the last two days. We keep her in our bedroom at night and can't let her roam free because a) she'd get her butt kicked by the cat; and b) she'd eat all the cat's food, and c) she'd eat out of the bathroom garbage. So she stays in our bedroom at night. I'd consider putting a water bowl in our bedroom so she can drink at will, but she's such a sloppy drinker I fear waking up in the morning would be like getting out of bed on the Titanic.

So I'm up and it's now 5:45 and it's not a work day and it would be nice to sleep in, but on the bright side, maybe I can get some writing done. I have an article for the local paper I need to finish (so much for not working on a holiday, hah ha), and maybe, just maybe, I can start on a new fiction project (yes, that's right, my current project is once again off in Carrie's hands; wish me luck!).

This weekend, the wife and I trucked ourselves out to the local brewery (err, wait, we now have at least three breweries in county, along with half-a-dozen wineries and a distillery, so we're fast becoming the cirrhosis capital of New York) for a concert headlined by Lake Street Dive, with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings as the opener. What a night!

We had high 80s all day, clear skies and a broiling sun. The forecast called for possible thunderstorms, but we saw nothing but a little puff cloud here and there. After the sun went down, things cooled, but nicely (we were there for a show seven or eight years back where it was drizzly and cold, thus miserable). It was only at the end of the night that a sweatshirt was needed. Anyway, we arrived around six, set up our chairs, got some beers, and ran into a friend of ours. I stood in a long line for a couple of burritos from a food truck, and pretty much when I got back to my chair, the show started, right at seven.

The venue is all lawn, general admission. There's an arc between the soundboard and stage that is a no-chair zone; beyond that, you can set up chairs anywhere you like. We aimed for just off center (so as not to be blocked by the tent covering the soundboard) a couple hundred feet back. It actually felt closer than the picture indicates.

Sharon Jones is the tiny red dot in the center of the stage

That glaring sun you see is the only drawback. When we arrived, the sun was almost directly over the stage, so we were looking right into it through Sharon Jones' set. Oh, the other drawback is the guy sitting in front of us had turned his chair around because of the sun, so he was five feet away and kind of staring at me while I tried to eat a burrito. It was kind of weird.

Jones and the Dap-Kings were mighty impressive. I know a couple of their songs from the radio ("100 Days, 100 Nights" and "Stranger to My Happiness") and really enjoyed the set. They've got a great, early 60s soul vibe, and as I said that night, it's not a style of music I seek out, but I really like it when I hear it. Jones at 60 years old (!) has more energy than a lot of younger people. They played for an hour and a half, by which time the sun had gone down. A quick set change, and Lake Street Dive took the stage right at nine.

I've featured Lake Street Dive here on at least two occasions. What was funny is the friend we ran into had about the same experience with discovering this band as me: heard an album review on NPR, found a video of them singing on a Boston street, and went from there. In his case, he'd seen them four or five times before. This was my first.

Small band, big sound

They put on a fantastic show. What surprised me from what I knew of them was that they rocked harder than expected based on their studio releases, but it wasn't in the way some bands do it, where they just kick up the tempo a few notches and add a bunch of "Now you sing along" type of stuff. They played loud, they played with energy, they played with passion, and they kept it flowing. And they did it without pyrotechnics, video screens, or a light show that needed its own nuclear plant to power it. Simple, but effective, where the band was the show. And they encored with this:


which was actually more impressive live than in the video.

What a night. How was your weekend?

Both photos by me; video by Lake Street Dive

Musical Monday: Brandi Carlile

Making a return trip to this blog is Brandi Carlile, with this excellent, relatively new song:



Very nice, that song.

What news of me? We're heading into the real lasts of the Catbird's high school 'career'. This week, she's got her final conference champion track meet (though not her last track meet; she qualified for sectionals in the 800 and 1500). She now has less than 20 days of school left. Wow.

The Magpie continues to thrive in Japan, though the end is also in sight. She booked her return flight, which caused quite a bit of sticker shock. Last fall, she flew out, non-stop, on a Dreamliner for under a thousand bucks. A non-stop return flight would have cost her almost 5 grand. Five thousand freakin' dollars. Instead, she booked a flight for roughly what she paid to get there, but this one stops in Hong Kong and will keep her traveling for something like 22 hours. Ugh.

Making steady progress now through the WiP. I had printed it out and spent a couple of weeks going through it, making notes and scribbles and sticking post its all over it (what fun!). Usually I start with the last version of the document, do a 'Save As' and make changes following my notes on the printed copy. This time, I started with a brand new, blank document and have been typing the whole thing back in. As a result, I'm making even more changes than are noted on my pages, which I think is making for a better revision--at least I hope so!

Not sure if this marks my return from sabbatical or not; we'll see. How's everything with all of you?

Musical Monday: Me and My Uncle

Whoa, how did it get to be Monday already? I'm not ready.Going back for more coffee. Have some music.


Me and My Uncle was written by "Papa" John Phillips of The Mamas and The Papas. Phillips was apparently mystified when he started receiving royalties for the song from Judy Collins' record company. Turns out he wrote the song in a hotel room one boozy night in 1963 or '64 while hanging out with Collins and others. He didn't write any of it down; fortunately, someone had a tape recorder running. Collins somehow ended up with the tape and began performing the song shortly thereafter, and released it on an album in 1964. Phillips would later record the song himself; he joked that he remembered the song more with each royalty check.

The Dead, they started playing the song in 1966. According to those who keep track of these things (and there are, indeed, those who keep track of these things), they played Me and My Uncle more in concert than any other song, performing it over 600 times. 

Bah, that's all I got today. How was your weekend?

Musical Monday: Squeeze

Reaching again back into the 80s vault. I've always liked this song. What surprised me is that it turned out to be Squeeze's highest-charting single in the United States, reaching #15 on the Billboard charts. I was sure that something like Tempted or Black Coffee in Bed would have hit higher on the charts; those songs were much more 'radio present' than this one, at least on the stations I listened to.



I watch a lot of these old videos (well, I don't really sit around watching them; I generally only search them out when a song pops into my head and I've really got to hear it, or I'm looking for a video for the blog) and I wonder if the artists were amused, embarrassed or annoyed at having to do the things they do in them. These guys look mostly amused.

Not much else to report from my little corner of the world here; the weekend was very busy and went by in a blink, leaving me feeling like I need a weekend! How's things by you all?

Musical Monday: Trigger Hippy

Even though videos have a tendency to disappear over time, leaving a hole in a blog post, I'll put 'em up anyway. This is Trigger Hippy, a nice little group featuring several former members of the Black Crowes (maybe former members; I'm not sure of the Black Crowes are still a functioning band or not) along with the very accomplished Joan Osborne. This is a live recording made by someone who seemed like he was hanging right on Jackie Greene's shoulder. It's got a little Lake Street Dive to it (or maybe Lake Street Dive has a little Trigger Hippy vibe to them).



In other news...well, there's not much other news. L.G. correctly pegged my mood last week with her comment ("Harrumph" was quite fitting). I find I'm still in a bit of a mood. At writers' circle yesterday I wrote a short piece about flipping the calendar page that was rather negative. I almost posted it here today, but it needs a little more work than I'm willing to give it right now. We've turned the calendar page here, it's September 1 AND it's Labor Day here in the States, which is the official end of summer, though the celestial calendar gives us another three weeks. Normally, I like autumn, but this one's bugging me. Probably because of the impending changes which I've already gone on about here at other times. Enough of that. Have a great week, everyone!

Musical Monday: Someone Keeps Moving My Chair

There may be a quirkier band in all the land than They Might Be Giants--but I haven't found them yet. The song goes back almost 25 years at this point (cry) to their 1990 album, Flood. The video was made by an 11-year-old boy several years ago. It works, in my opinion.




In other news, hmm, let's see. Oh, big stuff, The Catbird and my wife depart today for a couple of days to look at a couple of colleges. Unlike the Magpie, who knew exactly what she wanted to study (and leaves for Japan in 4-1/2 weeks), the Catbird really doesn't know. That makes it a bit harder to know where to look. I'm hoping this trip will help her figure some things out.

Remember last week, when I wrote about how I wrote something that my writers' group liked, much to my disbelief? On Wednesday, having to wait for a couple of hours for a ride, I ripped out what has turned out to be a 10-page short story that I really liked--it's thoroughly unpleasant. It's currently out with the writers' group and a couple of other friends. I'm interested in seeing what they think of it. My wife did not like it; it made her uncomfortable, which was part of the point of the piece (interesting side note: Stephen King always talks about writing for your 'perfect reader'; he says his wife is that person. I seem to like to make mine uncomfortable).

Did anyone check out the supermoon this weekend? Saturday night, it was so bright it almost hurt to look at. And just now (well, when I wrote this, not when you read this) I stepped out with the dog and was surprised to see it up there still, very large, very bright. It reminds me of a line from Robin Williams many years ago, on some HBO special. He interrupted himself, looked off wonderingly as if he were staring up at the heavens, and said, "Look! The moon, like a testicle hangs low in the sky." I really have to wonder why some things stick in your brain like that.

Speaking of sky-watching, the Perseid meteor showers should be visible the next couple of nights. The extra bright moon may get in the way a little bit, but it's usually worth watching. We had a bit of cloud cover last night, so I'll have to try again tonight.

That's about it for me for now; how's things by you?

EDIT: As a rule, I try not to subscribe to Magical Thinking. As a kid, I remember my mother sometimes thinking she must have ESP because she'd be thinking about a person and they'd call. The question Mom (and no none, really) wants to hear asked is, "What about all the times you were thinking of that person and they didn't call?" or the equally-annoying, "What about all the people who called when you weren't thinking about them?" It's definitely fun to believe that you have ESP, or that there's some sort of universal fabric we can't see that ties us all together, you know? And there may well be such a thing, but I don't place a lot of stock in it.

Still, I find it odd that I mention Robin Williams here and fifteen hours later find out that he passed away. I remember seeing him for the first time as Mork from Ork on a Happy Days episode, and then, of course, there was Mork and Mindy (really, a show that does not hold up well at all, but Williams was brilliant). As a family we watched Mork faithfully, and when Williams had his comedy specials on HBO we watched those, too. The man kept us in stitches. I still have no idea how a man's brain can work as fast as his did; it always seemed to be a hundred yards ahead of everyone else. He left behind a great body of work and had a tremendous influence on so many people. He will be missed.

Musical Monday: The Wheel

This song has been running through my head quite a bit these past couple of weeks. It could be that I'm in a particular mood lately (see last Monday's post), or it could be I've been listening to a lot of the Grateful Dead's 1976 summer tour, where this song was in the rotation quite a bit. Whatever the case, it's firmly lodged in my brain, so here's The Wheel, video complete with obligatory spinning hippies and appropriate intergalactic imagery.




I like the sense of inevitability this song conveys, though as someone in my midlate 40s, that's not necessarily comforting! Time marches on, whether we want it to or not, a point made a bit by the pounding drum. I've always liked these early versions of the song, with that lazy, liquid guitar that sort of floats over and above the more insistent rhythm section.

Well, I've run on more than enough here. I hope you all had a nice weekend. Last week, Bonnee Crawford tagged me for a Liebster Award--zip on over to her blog to see how she answered the questions, and what sort of torture she has in store for her victims. I'll give it some thought and save it for another time. Enjoy your week!

Musical Monday: Lake Street Dive

Howdy, all. Well, after an encouraging weekend with temperatures well above freezing, it looks like we're in for another nasty shot of winter, with the mercury plummeting to near zero again by Thursday or Friday night. This is the tough time of year in climates like this one, where you can see the end of winter in so many little ways--the color of willow branches, maple tubing going up on the trees, noticeably longer days, mud--yet winter is still here, and it doesn't really want to let go. Nothing to do but hang on and know spring is coming.

I got a second set of revisions back from Carrie this weekend and spent much of yesterday pounding away at them. My aim is to have them back to her this week, and hopefully, she'll not have anything else substantial to say. By the way, remember my gray/grey problem? I was sure I changed them all the last set of revisions. Early in the manuscript, I found the word 'grey'--"Hmm," I thought. "I was sure I changed them all to 'gray'." I did a 'Find All' and came up with close to 20 'greys.' Just for fun, I searched for 'gray' and found another 10. *headdesk* I think I need an intervention.

Anyway, I've got at least three, maybe four posts partly written--and incomplete. So here's some music instead, Bad Self Portraits from Lake Street Dive. I can't remember where I first heard this fine band--I remember seeing a video of them singing on a street corner in Boston, and was quite impressed. I heard about this latest song through an album review on NPR. Enjoy, I'll be back on Friday. How's life treating all of you?

Musical Monday: Kaleidoscope Heart

Another entry from the marvelous Sara Bareilles. The video is jumpy (no, I wasn't the one who shot it), but man, can this woman sing. And hearts do have colors, don't they?




I appreciate the input I've received so far as far on Friday's post. Please, keep it coming! Blogger is not exactly great for dialogue, but we can manage a discussion of sorts. I will follow up on that a bit sometime in the near future. Hope you're all well, and had a pleasant weekend.

Musical Monday: Lily Kershaw

Heard this song on the radio (yes, that's right, the radio. Yes, I had to stream it, but there actually are stations out there playing new music!) last week and really liked it. This track is from Ms. Kershaw's debut album. Melancholy mood music for a Monday in late October, it seems. Enjoy.




Lot's of talk out there as October fades away about NaNoWriMo. Once again, I'm in the NaNoNoNo club. The long-awaited read-through of Barton's Women is done and I've started in on actual revision work now. My goal is to have this bad boy out on the query trail by the end of November. It's only a couple months later than my plan, but everything in its own time, right? Anyway, given my schedule right now I don't have a lot of free time, and I need to get BW out the door sooner rather than later. If you're doing NaNo, best of luck and have fun! Don't put too much pressure on yourself.

You may have noticed the fluff-to-content ratio here has been high lately. Part of it is due to the time thing: since I have less writing time now, I'm putting in less time drafting posts in advance. Come Monday and Friday mornings I'm scrambling to complete the the half-formed thoughts I had a few days earlier, or I'm just completely winging it. At the same time I'm also a little burned out on the whole blogger/forum thing. I'm not even reading posts with the same...verve...that I was a couple of months ago. A break may be in the offing, though I'm not quite there yet. Or maybe I am. We'll see.

Had quite a bit of fun at my Writers' Circle yesterday. I blew off the prompt (a bit from an essay by the late Stephen Jay Gould) in favor of responding to a comment one of my fellow writers made, and ended up with something that was fun to write, and fun to read (except for that one spot where I couldn't figure out the word I had written). It actually seemed like it would loan itself to a bit of experimentation in form, using twin storylines written side-by-side, though I didn't have time to quite finish the first half, so I never got to the second half. We'll see where it goes, or if it goes.

That's it for me, how's everything going for you?

Musical Monday: Change In The Weather

This Musical Monday is brought to you by Mother Nature, who has seen fit to flip a seasonal switch in this little corner of the world.

First, a shout-out to the Catbird and her teammates and coaches on the cross country team--they won their conference championship meet on Saturday! 

On Friday at the office I noticed the wind had picked up. On occasion, our door would rattle, and every couple of minutes you could hear wind rushing through the trees. Inside, though we've had to put the heat on a couple of times, it was pleasant enough. Unlike my house, the place I work is pretty tightly put together, so there are no drafts flowing through the space.

I opened the door and stepped out into what looked like a classic fall day: blue sky, a bit blustery, colorful leaves spinning down—but the thought that crossed my mind came straight out of Ned Stark's head: Winter is coming.

We've had cold weather before, this year. Our summer kind of ended in mid-July, temperature-wise. It first dipped into the thirties weeks ago, we had our first hard frost in mid-September, and I woke up to sub-freezing temperatures at the beginning of this month, so it's been coming for some time. Yet there was something different this time. The feeling was different, and the smell—autumn is the smell of woodsmoke and mouldering leaves. It's rich, aromatic, almost spicy. Then there's a winter smell, cold and clean. This was the first time, even with those occasional, very cold nights, that I've gotten that smell, that same feeling. Winter is coming.

Here's John Fogerty, the primary brain behind the classic sixties group, Creedence Clearwater Revival, with his solo song, Change In The Weather. Something I find interesting is the lyrical similarity between this song and something like Bad Moon Rising, though Bad Moon's rather foreboding lyrics are set off by bouncy, peppy music. Enjoy!

Musical Monday: Neil Young

Wow. I'm much more tired than I thought. I should know by now that it's the day after the day after that leaves you feeling like you got hit by Miley Cyrus and her wrecking ball (not to fear, folks, Cyrus's video is not forthcoming from me; but did you see the words of advice from Sinead O'Connor to Cyrus? Good stuff, and possible fodder for a post--but not today).

No, I'm going in a different direction. It's funny the way our brains make connections, how thought follows thought, often in an orderly, progressive matter, and the links that are sometimes made. Yesterday afternoon I was washing up some dishes, and thinking. Not thinking about the event, for the first time in several days, but thinking about writing. More specifically, Sunday afternoon is my Writers' Circle day and I was in pre-thinking mode, which I sometimes do on Sundays. Sometimes I go in completely devoid of ideas and follow the prompt, or whatever catches my attention, other times I go in with some kind of pre-existing idea. And a phrase came to me. Where it came from, I don't know, but it involved wind and a keyhole (no, I did not have Stephen King on my mind), but that seemed like too much of a cliché, so I kept thinking.

So I stood at the sink with my hands in hot, soapy water, thinking. And by the way, hand washing dishes is great for thinking about writing. It's something to do with your hands that doesn't overtax your brain, allowing for good flow of thoughts--oh, how all of you with the industrial-strength dishwashers that don't even need a cursory scrape of the stuck-on food bits envy me. Anyway, I discarded the wind through the keyhole idea, but kept thinking on wind rattle a door in its frame. And I 'saw' a person, a woman, sitting in a darkened room, watching the door. It's windy, the door is almost breathing in that way flimsy doors sometimes do on a windy day. She's got a shotgun in her lap. As she's watching, light starts playing around the edges of the door, as if someone's approaching with a flashlight. Who? I don't know. Why? Don't know. But I see this woman lift her shotgun, settle the but against her shoulder, and level the barrel at the door, one eye squeezing shut, her finger curling on the trigger, waiting. And then, in a perfectly logical way, a song lyric followed: "Daddy's rifle in my hand felt reassuring", and the spell was kind of broken.



Way back in the day, back when this song was new, back when rock radio wasn't compartmentalized into styles of classic hits (we have two 'classic rock' stations in our area; one tends to favor a slightly harder edge that includes almost constant dosages of Led Zeppelin; the other is a little more mellow, and feeds us a lot more of things like Crosby, Stills & Nash (and sometimes Young), and the Eagles. Neither station plays this song as far as I can tell), this song was all over the radio. I haven't heard it in years, but it's a great one, in my opinion. One of the remarkable things about it to me is how visual it is--I can see this poor kid standing on the docks, rifle in hand, with this big boat--and his doom--bearing down on him. And it's got character building, too. Think about what you learn about this kid and his family in a few short verses. Young is a brilliant songwriter, and it's amazing to think that he's been at it for somewhere around 50 years now.

Anyway, that's that. I'll add that my event went quite well from my perspective. I have a buttload of stuff to unload from my van today, some post-event wrap up to do, and then I'm probably going to sit at my desk and think, "Now what?" I'll find something. How was your weekend?

Musical Monday: "New"

For once, some new music, though it's from an old source, and has a very familiar sort of sound. Kind of appropriate for our first full day of a new season.




I love fall. One of the things that's so great, aside from the colors, is how much everything seems to change from day to day. Of course, every day is something new, but it's really evident in fall.

Of course, there is one bad thing about fall: with the kids back in school, colds start spreading. Within the first two weeks of school, the sniffles and coughs and low grade fevers are passed back and forth among the kids, and then on to everyone else, and sure enough, I've got one. It's not too bad, and I'll get over it fast, but bleah.

How are you all doing?

Musical Monday: Birdhouse In Your Soul

They Might Be Giants--a quirky band if ever there was one. I remember seeing them on TV somewhere before I'd ever heard them on the radio and thinking, "Who are these guys?" They make me think, which is good, and they make me smile, which is even better. This song contains what may be the only use of the word 'filibuster' in musical history.




Now, I'm having one of those weird moments where I really feel like I've done this post before. I poked around and couldn't find it, so if it's an inadvertent rerun, you have my apologies.

Musical Monday: Still Fighting the War

Heard this on NPR's folk program last night.




When I was kid, if I heard someone refer to 'The War', it meant WWII. Twenty-five, thirty years after the end of that conflict, WWII still shaped so much of the world, and my perceptions of it. We had the Cold War as a direct result of it, for one thing, plus I knew people who had fought in it. My grandfather, several uncles, fathers of a couple of my friends. They were still making movies about it and doing TV shows about it (and this was long before The Hitler History Channel provided us with fodder like, Sex and The Third Reich), and books, books, books.

It wasn't until later that Vietnam came into sharper focus for me. I was a little too young (and I suspect my parents shielded me from the more grisly images of body bags and burned out villages that were shown on TV) to really remember or pay much attention to Vietnam; it wasn't until Vietnam began entering popular culture through films like The Deer Hunter that I started paying attention. At the same time, more and more Vietnam veterans began fighting for their rights, and more and more of them began revealing major physical and psychological damage as a result of their experiences. Sadly, the crazed Vietnam vet who was "still fighting the war" became a cliche used to drive all kinds of TV programs and movies. World War II veterans seemed to make a seamless transition back to civilian life (and I know this isn't true, but that's the perception); Vietnam veterans, by contrast, had a far more difficult time. "Still fighting the war" was a phrase much more frequently attributed to them than to veterans of other conflicts.

When I heard the title of this song, and the opening verse, I immediately thought it was a Vietnam song. Funny how you get conditioned, isn't it? It wasn't until the line, "Flashback to Fallujah" that I realized Cleaves is talking about the Iraq war, the war that is still going on. Perspective is a strange thing.

Musical Monday: Mountain Sound

Making a second appearance on Musical Monday is Of Monsters and Men. This tune has gotten some radio play in these parts. Nice stuff.



I'm impressed with all of you out there who are plowing through your "A-Z" entries. I confess, it's hard to keep up with you all! Not much else to say right now. Have a great week!